And a lot have happened. Where to start? Well the training goes well again and today I did 17K of sand dunes running with the last 2Ks on the beach with high tide and massive waves due to a autumn storm. I got wet. Yesterday I did a tempo run of 9k also in the storm. Not the reason why I ran fast, I just felt like it. Early in the week I did a short recovery run and on Saturday I believe my friend John has arranged a 28k mountain run on the Bibbulmun Track. Adding up its going to be a 100K week.

The upcoming race Kep Ultra 100 is getting close and Saturday we did a 41k night time recon run of the last bit of the track. I ran it with two of my running mates and we had a good time laughing, talking and just enjoying the run. The last 5k was entirely on single track and it was beautiful just before 10 o’clock at night. I believe from km 15 – 20 was all steady uphill and on race day that is supposed to be km 75 – 80 and killing. We did the run sub 4 hours and that was quite all right. Less than 4 weeks to race day and I’m starting to get pumped about the race.

My long awaited Inov 8 trailroc 255 has now been doing 200 k roughly and I’m disappointed. They have been nothing good. First of all there is no speed in those. They way they are made just makes you go slower, but I guess they were made for Ultras. I wore them Saturday for the 41K night recon run and the trails were hardpack most of it. That a kind of smashed my feet up getting tired and the shoes only performed well on the last bit of single trail. Today I wore the shoes in the sand dunes and they did that quite well, but when I got to beach and intentionally went in to the ocean water , they got so heavy and almost didn’t drain at all. Leaving the beach and running the 500 meters home the shoes slushed all the way. Even before the Inov-8 Trailroc 255 got two weeks old the rubber in the front of the right shoe began to slip. I a kind of expected it to happen since I read in a IRunFar Review that they had experienced the same thing but I hoped the manufacturer had solved that problem. Just days before my last 50k race I had to glue the shoes with 10 second glue to hold them together. I bought the shoes for that race and wanted to wear them. In that race they performed well though. I’m keeping my eyes on the shoes now and if the glue begins to let go again I’m going to return them and not wanting an exchange. I will not recommend this shoe. Go for the Trailroc 245 or some of the other really great Inov-8 shoes.

What else? Well I just moved a few blocks to a much nicer place, where I also can storage my running shoes, equipment and apparel in a good way. Now we also have a lot of spare square meters where I can do my strengthening and other exercises when not out running. Strengthening is just a must do to stay in shape, stay fit for a long ultra race and not getting injured. I do my exercises at least 4 times a week.

Right now we are having a big storm in this part of the country and it is actually not that warm to run at the moment. Still we do run in short pants and sleeves but the last 2 days I did put on my running vest. The weather report says destructive wind gusts and last nights tail run on awesome single trail was cancelled. Once and in a while we DO take care of ourselves 🙂

One of these days I’m going to make some paleo post race mysli bars that I posted a while ago. I hope they are going to be a success cause I would like to use them for my 100K race with a few corrections so they become energy bars. More chocolate in the recipe I guess.

The mailman am I waiting for bigtime. He is bringing new running shoes, backpack, bottles and bladder. I’ve got to stay good friends with him.

Todays training in Perth hills was no pleasure. It normaly is and I have had plenty of rest during the week!?! I guess it was because of the quite warm autumn day and the lack of wind in the woods. I did sweat a fair deal and I kept drinking. After 20K I had 2L of water from my backpack. Fortunately I had another 2 X 750 ml botles in the back as well. At mark 25 K I guess we did finish. I am only guessing since I forgot my watch this morning. What a great day hey. I got home to the family, had a little bite, a short rest and a nice shower. Maybe I should stay out of the hills for a while. My next race is an almost flat 100 K race 2nd of June. I better start on picking up the pace for the Kep Ultra 100 K on the Kep Track Western Australia.